


lethe

by brinnanza



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical suicidal ideation, M/M, MAG 151 Big Picture, Possible misapplication of fear entity powers, Yelling Your Feelings, extremely bad decisions, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 14:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20490722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: There is movement just beyond the door to Jon’s office, and he Knows.Or: The aftermath of Martin and Basira's conversation in 151





	lethe

**Author's Note:**

> *canonballs into the magnus archives fandom because I have a Type* hi hello here is This. please note the author does not condone uhhhhh Any Of This tbh because everyone makes Very Bad Decisions. it is currently canon-compliant, though I'm about to get Jossed. This is uhh not one of those fics where martin comes safely back to the archives due to the power of love, so. sorry about that.
> 
> thanks for zeta for looking this over for me and also pulling me into the fandom. title is for the underworld river of greek mythology, also known as the river of oblivion because I had hadestown on the brain.

There is movement just beyond the door to Jon’s office, and he Knows.

He drops the statement he’d been considering, some harrowing tale of trauma that is less important right now than answers, and scrambles out of his chair. “Basira, wait!” he calls down the corridor, running after her. She turns, and Jon stops short to avoid a collision. 

Basira peers at him, eyes narrowed in what might have once been simple curiosity, but is now tinged unmistakably with suspicion. “Yeah?”

“You talked to Martin.” The words slip from Jon’s lips almost before he’s decided to utter them. Patience has never been his strong suit, but the hungry thing inside of him, the thing he is now, has little use for it. 

Basira’s eyes narrow further. “I told you to stay out of my head.”

“Sorry,” Jon says, but he isn’t, not really. He still can’t control what slips under the door in his mind, but this is not knowledge he regrets. Martin told him not to find him, but Jon can’t help looking for Martin around every corner, like just a glimpse of him will settle his nerves, remind him that Martin hasn’t disappeared forever into some desolate, lonely place. 

“I’m not telling you anything,” Basira says. Her eyes track him carefully, like a wary rabbit caught before a fox. “He asked me not to.”

Of course he did. “Basira--”

“If you want to know what he said, ask him yourself. This isn’t primary school; I’m not gonna pass notes for you two.”

She turns to leave, but Jon slips around and intercepts her. The hungry thing inside him growls in anticipation. “Tell me what he said.”

“Ask your eyeball god. Get out of my way.”

The distant, human part of Jon, whatever remains of it, knows he should leave it at that, should go back to his desk and read a statement and trust Martin. The Archivist is so much stronger, ravenous for answers. It won’t stop until it gets what it needs, and Jon has been so desperate for any scrap of information about what Martin is doing, about _how_ Martin is doing, that he’s not sure would stop it even if he could.

“What did he say, Basira?” asks the Archivist, compulsion on his tongue.

Basira tells him, nearly word for word. When she’s finished and the words stop spilling from her mouth against her will, her expression sharpens dangerously. “You _bastard_,” she hisses, fists clenched as if to hit him. He almost hopes she will - the hunger recedes, sated for the moment, and leaves a nauseous, twisting guilt it its wake. “Did you enjoy that tasty snack? Get enough to tide you over? Stay the _hell_ away from me, Sims.” She shoves him, hard, and moves past him.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says weakly. He tries to tell himself that he hadn’t meant to, but even in his own head, the words ring false. He’d known what would happen the moment he opened the door, and he’d decided the cost was worth it. “Basira, I’m so sorry.”

She whirls on him, eyes flashing. “Do you know,” she says, voice tight with fury, “sometimes I really wish you’d never woken up from that coma.” She stalks away and disappears through a door at the end of the corridor, slamming it closed behind her.

“Yeah,” says Jon to the empty hall. “So do I.”

\--

Martin’s in his office, the little admin space just off Elias’s - _Peter’s_ \- office. Jon Knows before he’s formulated the question to ask, and he lets that knowledge tug him up out of the archives. The guilt gives way once again to hunger, a steady simmer of need that boils under his skin and shaves his temper down to nil. Trust Martin - what a mistake that had been. Familiar contempt bubbles up within Jon, a feedback loop of hunger-anger-hunger.

He doesn’t bother to knock at Martin’s door, just barges in, ignoring Martin’s startled “Jon, what are you -” as he starts to get up. Martin looks - fine, mostly. Tired. Jon’s stomach swoops uncomfortably at the sight of him, and he glances around automatically, half convinced Simon Fairchild must still be lurking.

“Sit down, Martin,” Jon says icily, pushing it away. Compelling Basira had been nowhere near satisfying, had only whet his appetite for more. “You have made some remarkably foolish decisions in the course of your employment at this Institute, but apparently, when presented with the basement of your own stupidity, you have elected to _dig_.”

Martin sits down. “What happened to ‘we have to trust Martin’?” His eyes keep darting to the door, as if planning an escape. 

Jon pins him in place with a gimlet eye. “I thought I could trust you not to kill yourself,” he says, “but apparently, I _can’t_, so no. You’re going to explain.”

Martin doesn’t even have the grace to look guilty at that, just blows out a breath and mutters, “Damn it, I told Basira not to tell you.”

“I didn’t give her a choice.”

If Jon expects recrimination in Martin’s expression, it doesn’t come. “If you already listened to the tapes, then you already know everything.”

“Yes, I did find your little collection of suicide notes,” Jon says. Martin does look a little guilty at that, and opens his mouth to protest, but Jon cuts him off. “Oh, is that not what they were? I presume I was meant to find them after you were gone. A goodbye and an explanation all in one.” He gives a cruel, mirthless laugh. “You can’t hide things from the Ceaseless Watcher, Martin.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Martin says weakly. “It was just in case. If I couldn’t tell you after. If I was… different after.”

“Tell me now,” Jon says. “All of it.”

“I told you, I can’t-”

“You can,” Jon says, and there is a vast and yawning emptiness within him that aches to Know. “You can, Martin, or I’ll Ask.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Martin hesitates for just a moment, expression nervous, and Jon just barely holds himself back from taking a step forward, spurred on by his hunger. The Archivist half hopes Martin will resist, force Jon to drag the answers out of him.

“Fine,” Martin says eventually. “Fine. But I’m doing this under duress, and I won’t be held responsible if you charge off and do something monumentally stupid like you always do.”

So Martin explains. Most of it Jon had already gleaned from the tapes, but Martin’s been doing his own research in between, apparently, running the entire Institute. It’s a waste of Martin’s time and his talents, and Jon nearly says so, but he knows Martin will just misread it as a compliment.

“And now Peter _won’t_ tell me what he’s planning, or anything at all for that matter,” Martin says after he’s confessed everything, “because he wants me to join the Lonely, and I can’t do that if you keep showing up and reminding me -” Martin closes his mouth abruptly. “I have to be alone for this,” he continues, voice much softer. “You’re just making it harder.”

“We’ll find it,” Jon says. Distantly, he knows this is probably wishful thinking of a particularly indulgent sort, but the alternative is an unthinkable anathema. “Whatever it is, we’ll find it. We’ve - I’ve - lost enough people to this place, to these beings. I won’t lose you too, Martin. I won’t.”

“Jon -”

Something in Jon’s chest aches, not a void but an unrelenting pressure, like there is too much inside of him. “No! You don’t get to decide you’re an acceptable loss!”

“That’s fucking rich, coming from you,” Martin snaps. “At least I have a plan! And it’s a good plan, Jon. Maybe I survive it, and maybe I don’t, but at least the world will still be there for other people to survive. At least no one else gets hurt.”

“Do you honestly think no one else will get hurt by you throwing yourself at Peter Lukas’s mercy? I knew you were stupid, Martin, but I didn’t think you were quite so selfish.”

“Wow,” Martin says, in a faintly taken aback sort of way that’s just barely covering a molten fury. “Wow, Jon. I see. So it’s fine for you to throw yourself into whatever lethal bullshit you want because you have some kind of death wish -”

“I do not have a death wish,” Jon cuts in, because wanting retribution for a monster isn’t the same thing at all.

“- but the second anyone comes up with a better plan - an actual plan that might actually work - suddenly it’s too dangerous and the almighty archivist knows best. Well, believe it or not, Jon, you don’t actually know everything. So you’re just - you’re just going to sit down and let me do this.”

“Martin -”

“No, you _are_,” Martin continues, steamrolling right over him. He’s on his feet now, using every inch of his greater high to shout down at Jon. “I’m gonna save the world, and you’re gonna fucking live in it, Jon.”

“We will find another way,” Jon says. He squares his shoulders, lifting his chin to meet Martin’s determined gaze with his own. Martin is stubborn, but he’s no match for Jon, not here at the end of his rope, left with just enough to hang himself. “I am not going to let you sacrifice yourself.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because!” Jon yells, and the words wrench themselves out of him without his say so. “Because what’s the point of saving the world if you’re not in it?”

Martin blinks at him, and then his shoulders slump, like all the anger has run out of him. He looks very tired suddenly, and the weary crease in his brow adds years to his face.

“We’ll find another way,” Jon insists, and the too-much ache inside of him crawls up his throat to choke him.

Martin sinks back down into his chair and lets out a sigh. “I don’t think there _is_ another way. Believe me, I’ve been looking. I don’t - I don’t _want_ to work with Peter; I don’t want to join the Lonely or lose myself, but I can’t… You _died_, Jon. I can’t do that again.”

“Martin,” Jon says, and it comes out soft, fragile. “Please. I can’t let you do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Martin buries his face in his hands and lets out a long, slow breath. “Just… Just go, Jon, okay? I need you to go. I… I _want_ you to go.”

“No you don’t,” Jon says, and it isn’t the Eye that tells him. It’s the deep lines in Martin’s forehead, the sagging line of his shoulders. The cold, desolate air that clings to him like a second skin.

“No,” Martin admits, “I don’t. But you need to. Please. _Please_, Jon.”

Something inside of Jon tugs at him to leave, but something stronger makes him stay. He closes the gulf between them, grasping Martin’s shoulders in a desperate bid to anchor him. He’s warm against Jon’s palms, and Jon realizes abruptly that he’d expected Martin to be as cold as the aura of isolation that surrounds him. “No, you listen to me, Martin,” Jon says. “We will find another way, one that doesn’t come at the expense of your life. That’s - that’s much too high a cost.”

“And what about yours?” Martin says, looking up to meet Jon’s gaze. “Is your life an acceptable cost?”

_Yes_, Jon thinks but does not say. Martin can read it on his face anyhow, spelled out in Jon’s averted gaze. “I chose this,” he says, fingers pressing desperate bruises into Martin’s skin. “It’s already too late for me, you know that. It’s only a matter of time before the written statements don’t sustain me anymore, and I either consume or be consumed. I’m doing my best, but I’m… I’m a monster, Martin.”

“You’re not,” Martin says. “Not to me.”

The worst part, Jon thinks, is that Martin actually believes that, believes that if he can just keep Jon safe through this latest world-ending catastrophe, that will be enough. But there’s no such thing as safe, Jon knows, has never been.

“Let me help you,” Jon says, well aware he’s pleading now. If begging is what it will take for Martin to let him in again, Jon will get on his knees right here. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Martin gives him a sad, resigned smile. “Yes, I do.” He stands then, reaching out to cup Jon’s face in one large, soft hand. Jon’s breath catches; Martin cradles his jaw so carefully, like Jon is something precious, something worth protecting instead of the living nightmare he knows himself to be.

“Goodbye, Jon,” Martin says, and Jon knows he means it to be the last time.

“No!” Jon fists his hands in Martin’s shirt, pulling him close enough to feel his body heat. It won’t end like this, it _won’t_. There has always been a line in the sand for Jon, beyond which is oblivion, but Martin will survive this. Martin _has_ to survive this. A sob rises in his throat, and his eyes sting with tears. “Don’t -”

But Martin is gone between one blink and the next, leaving Jon grasping nothing but empty air. His knees give out then, and he sinks to the floor of Martin’s empty office, shoulders shaking with sobs he can no longer suppress. There is a screaming void of static within him that begs for answers, for action, for anything besides the cold emptiness that permeates the whole Institute.

He can still feel Martin’s hand on his cheek.


End file.
